Why the Hobbit Trilogy is a Disaster

Warner Brothers loves money. Peter Jackson loves money too. I can’t blame them because I also like money and candy and trains that go really fast. But The Hobbit isn’t about those things and it’s not a trilogy. It’s not even two movies, but now it’s being turned into three movies.

“So you’re saying we’re going to have to make three movies to pay for all this?”

There’s nothing wrong with making a single children’s book into a three film epic that can’t be fixed by making it into a single movie instead.

Peter Jackson is justifying the decision to rape The Hobbit and the childhoods of some 90 year old men by claiming that J.R.R. Tolkien would have wanted it this way. And I know that’s true. If there was one thing that Tolkien loved and trusted it was Hollywood. Also the Huns. And I think the old man was in love with modern technology.

But what does a three film Hobbit really mean?

Have you seen the three Lord of the Rings movies? It’ll be like that, except with a much poorer story. Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies already went too ensemble and diminished Frodo’s role and Gandalf’s role.

The Hobbit trilogy will do the same thing to the max. It’ll go as ensemble as it can to show us all the other stuff going on. Cut from Frodo riddling with Gollum to show us Gandalf leading the dwarves away and the Goblin king’s son vowing revenge for his death and then cut to what’s going on in Mirkwood and the Dale.

Obviously we’re going to need a female warrior in this, because girl power! So maybe work in Rohan or just bring in a female warrior elf. The only people who will care are nerds and they’ll be drowned in wankfic about L’io’rasalluma, the new female elf who can backflips and rescues Bilbo seven times before the trilogy is over and Gandalf once.

Oh sure that probably won’t happen. Except no, it totally will. Unless you think Jackson and Warner Brothers hired Lost’s Evangeline Lilly and flew her out to New Zealand just to spend two days shooting a scene or two as Bilbo encounters Galadriel. No Lilly won’t be playing Galadriel, she’ll be playing Tauriel.

“She is a warrior. She’s actually the head of the Elven guard. She’s the big shot in the army. So she knows how to wield any weapon, but the primary weapons that she uses are a bow and arrow and two daggers. And she’s lethal and deadly.”

…because Girl Power!

Now I don’t object to girl power, but The Hobbit is not a story where the characters are expert weapon wielders and spend a lot of time kicking ass. It’s a book about a Hobbit who goes nervously on an adventure with some dwarves and a mysterious wizard.

The Hobbit is not going to be THE HOBBIT TRILOGY because there’s no room for that small quiet story in the belly of the horrible epic trilogy beast. The Hobbit is going to be drowned in the epicness of WB and Jackson making their money.

What Peter Jackson and Co. will do is make up their own poor copy of Lord of the Rings, wedge it into The Hobbit story, make the whole trilogy as epic as possible with more monsters and battles. It’ll be like Clash of the Titans but with some hobbit stuff thrown in.

Jackson will expand the conflict at the end of the book and stretch it out through the whole movie, find ways to bring in Mordor, and a ton of monsters and references from the Tolkienverse to play up to fans. And then instead of Gandalf tricking the Trolls into arguing and turning to stone; Tauriel will leapfrog over them, shoot one with her bow, stab another one with her dagger and then set a First Edition of The Hobbit on fire… because that’s what the Hobbit trilogy is really about.

Here’s a thought.

Maybe Peter Jackson and the WB can drop that Hobbit name which doesn’t really communicate epicness and rename the trilogy to something cooler. Like “Clash of the Hobbits”. No, still too Hobbity. Okay, “Clash of the Titans.”

Is that why so many people were hoinpg for the end yesterday? A simple lack of hobbit feet to help them keep plodding along. I am reading The Hobbit to Zoe now. Bilbo has just climbed the great oak tree as they pass through Mirkwood, he has felt the breeze on his face but cannot see the end of the forest. Despair and a lack of food, we will think of you as they find their way out, towards hope.

Um I’ve actually never read The Hobbit . Apparently it used to be part of the 7th grade reindag list until some crazy parents complained about it, so we read The House of Dies Drear instead. It was, the suck.